LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. %jp iop^ngp f UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. f* Jl >-;^!:^:::i(^^;-;'--^ 2i ■0.^7 /^ "The dawn is on the mountain tops." LIBERTY AS DELIVERED BY The Goddess AT HER UNVEILING V ^ ^yscv* ..:;::s is) \y In the Harbor of New York V.-.N -v ^ ^K*- OCTOBER 28, 1886 BROOKLYN, N. Y. i9ublisi)rt! bu tl)f 'Ixilljar, 12^8 BeiforU '^Ijc. 1886 »f> The Trade will lie supplied from tlic autlior s study throtigli the American News Coinpaiiy, New York. ^ s I n •. COPYRIGHTED 1886 BY MILLER HAGEMAN. PRESS OF THE UNIONIST-GAZETTE ASSOCIATION. office of American Committee OF THE Statue of Liberty. f^ New York, Nov 6, 1886. ^HE following poem was prepared for the Inaugu- ral Ceremony of the Statue of Liberty, wilh the expectation that after it had been sulsmitted to the Committee it would, in case of its approval, have been deliv- ered by the autlior on that occasion. It is at once to be distinguished from all other poems written for the occasion by the fact that it was the only poem out of all that were offered which came before the Committee for consideratiorv. It gives me great pleasure to state that the judgment of the Committee, as well as that of my own, regarding the literary merits of the poem, has been most gratifyingly confirmed by three of America's greatest poets in their letters of commenda- tion to the Committee. It has been a source of the deepest regret that in view of tlie severe inclemency of the occasion, tlie extreme lengtli of the programme in spite of its abbreviation in every possible way, coupled with the length of the poem as finally completed, rendered it necessary at the last moment to omit it from the programme in the face of those more imperative obligations that crowded the ceremony. The commendable behaviour of the poet under this most trying ordeal has won for him so warmly the respect and regard of his friends that I beg to repeat in connection with this pub- lication the request which I made to the New York World, hut which unfortunately failed to reach its editor in time, viz: that this poem be printed in connection with the Inaugural Ceremony of the Statue of Liberty, in the Harbor of New York, October 28, 1886, to the end that its historic relation to that great event may be preserved beyond peradventure. RICHARD BUTLER. Secretary American Com??iii(ee. Preface. TAKE off of others all responsibility for any of the sentiments of this poem from which they may dissent (2^)_^ and put it solely on myself. I am pure in my purpose, in endeavoring to interpret the idea of Liberty in its genius and integrity for all lands and for all peoples, to bring to it, lest it be belittled in the eyes of men, that breadth of thought and of treatment which seeks not only to trace it in its development from great, inexorable laws of natural growth up througli history and humanity to its present stage, but also to perceive the prophetic handwriting which its great Limner- Queen shall throw on the Future in characters of leading light. I beg to thank most thoroughly the members of the committee for the generous subscriptions which have enabled me to put this print into the hands of my fellow men for the future judg- ment of mankind, and in thanking them to thank particularly the Secretary of that Committee, with whose noble efforts in its behalf this attempt must ever stand connected. MILLER HAGEMAN. Brooklyn, Nov. 8, 1886. ©ctiicatrti to ^^umanitg. Liberty, ! [PTsj: :^^^^^x:s^ iw gHE dawn is on the mountain tops, the night is flying fast, The Hght the world hath waited for so long hath come at last ; That light whose flattery never fell on summit or on sea, That beaconing light, my countrymen, the light of Liberty. Deep in the caverns of the dark, doubled in gorgeous gloom. Bound hand and foot, lay Liberty, like morn in mid- night's tomb. Bursting her fetters she came forth with Freedom's scroll unfurled. And in her tireless hand the torch whose light shines round the world. Lone Goddess of the granite height, with daybreak on thy brow, What royal greeting waits thy grace ? whence, stranger, earnest thou ? Art thou a Persian that thy hand salutes the rising sun ? A grave Chaldean signalling the wise stars one by one ? Art thou a bright archangel clad in the black robe of night. Who, through thy awful frown of bronze, dost smile down on our sight ? Ask of the land beyond the sea toward which thy face is set, The land that saved our liberty, the land of La- fayette. When, for the creed of equal rights, for conscience and for thought; When, for the freedom of her sons, this young Repub- lic fought; When, through the angry gloom she saw the con- quering foe advance, A hght streamed out upon the sky — the oriflamb of France. Our drooping banner caught that gleam when hope was almost gone, While, as it robbed heaven of its first bright colors of the dawn. Red flamed its stripes of morning light, bright streaked its silver bars. And, breaking through the azure blue, shone out the morning stars. It stirred, it thrilled, it curled, it clomb, it waved away the night, And flung o'er Freedom's continent its courier-bird of light. Wafted from off" its wings that light across the water gleamed. Till, with twin freedom on its folds, the French tri- color streamed. Behold ! by thy great sculptor's hand, up to the altar led, Bless thou with benediction prayer the worlds thy light shall wed. While trails the red arbutus vine across the winter snow, As if with flowering drops of blood our bleeding tracks to show ; While rolls the sunset-crimsoned Seine into the crimsoning sea, France and Columbia shall stand forever one in thee. Scarce from the narrow bounds of men, scarce had'st thou turned thy face, To steep thy chafing soul in all the amplitude of space ; Scarce had'st thou breathed the boundless air and heard the north wind blow. And felt the billows break against thy massy base below ; Scarce had the lightning leaping down its spirit to thee lent, Before thy arm was raised to show what all that Freedom meant ; Till, scoffing at the night that came to mock thee in the dark, Thy heart with one electric throb shot out yon quivering spark, The currents of whose truth shall thrill till all the sons of earth Shall feel what Liberty hath cost and what its light is worth. Alive — with all thy memories, with all that thou dost mean, In the great name of Liberty we hail its Limner- Queen ! Steal thou, bright maid, the morning's blush, the sunset's ruddy glow. To greet the nations as they come, to bless them as they go. 13 Thou art as one from out the heavens, whom God himself hath sent, To seal forever Slavery's tomb as Freedom's monu- ment. Thou art, with thorn-girt crown, that marks man's struggle to be free, A rapt prophetic seer of all thy glory yet to be. Amid the starry march of worlds, peering with breathless pause, On that grand vision beyond sight of thy unfinished cause, How dajk thy dawning glory soon shall seem as ages gone. While from far suns across thy face that wave of light rolls on. For well thou know'st, though man hath wrought, e're thy long watch was set. Great things for human liberty, man hath but little yet. 14 Whence spra?ig the light that lit thy torch ? And as the vision broke, Pointing the Prophecy of Time, the silent Goddess spoke : "Shut up within the darkened soul, there yearned since Time began " The light of that immortal truth — the liberty of man; " Through the long, tortuous labyrinth of ignorance and doubt, " The slow procession of the Past is winding dimly out. " Borne not with outward signs of pomp the warder heard or saw, " That light came forth the latent power of universal law; " The light that in an opal holds the rainbow in the rock, " That smiles out in its unborn sleep, a cherub in the block, 15 " Works in the crucible of earth the chemistry of change, " Rends in the nodule of an Alp the ruddy moun- tain-range, " Pushes with gentle violence through seed and leaf and spray, " Drives on with steady doom of growth and blossoms into day, " Opens at morn with noiseless keys the ivory gates of night, " Sets its red sandal on the sky, the cloud, the snow- capped height, " Steps from the stained crag to the palm, the shrub, the daisy's cup, " Stirs the still couch with unseen hand and lights Creation up ; " The light that in the march of mind, from age to age, hath wrought " The bright discoveries that have flashed about the forge of thought ; i6 " That hews the mountains, climbs the heavens, leaps oceans at a bound, " Unveils the future, limns the dead, and speaks with- out a sound ; " The light that quickens in the soul, that fires the eager face, " Inspires the hope, kindles the truth that thrills from race to race ; " The light that warms the Golden Page, that tells men they are free, '' Gleamed forth on the historic steps of human liberty. " It twinkled out, a lonely Star, upon the heavens of old, " By whose pale ray of prophecy that hght was first foretold. " It ghmmered on the Orient upon a race of slaves, " It led them forth as conquerors beyond the clos- ing waves. 17 It glinted on Phoenicia and at its sail-caught smiles The shuttles of her ships knit all her sandal-scented isles. It shed a broken gleam on Greece, and, with its glory wreathed. She shone with mighty words that burned and mar- ble gods that breathed. It cast a beam on Italy and, as its scroll un- furled, A power came forth upon the earth that governed all the world. It threw a ray on Runnymede from pennon, spear and tent, And, born of Magna Charta, bred the Briton's Parlia- ment. It shot a glance on Germany across the Zuyder- Zee, Where stamped with brave Reformer's blood men printed — Liberty. " It tlashe.l upon the knights of Spain and, on the trampled corse, " The man on foot, with musket raised, challenged the man on horse. "It quickened Russia's frozen heart that long refused to flow, " Till with emancipated serfs it beat from out the snow. " It dawned upon Columbia and first to freemen gave " A liberty her Martyr-Chief proclaimed to every slave. " It fired the peasantry of France weighed down with heavy woes, " And round a feudal monarchy a free republic rose. " In every country of the earth since years were in their youth, "The greatest friend to liberty hath been the light of truth. 19 "In every nation of the past whose glory hath de- creased, " The greatest foe to Hberty, the craft of king and priest. " Bred up by grand, heroic deeds, by agonizing throes, " By suffering whose hnes have wrought this resolute repose : " Forth with majestic stride from out the dusky files of men, " On whose great like man ne'er hath looked and ne'er shall look again : " Behold ! great Freedom's first-borti child, historic heir of Time, " Whose crown hath caught those scattered rays of every race and clime. " Behold ! my first bright trophy won — the Bastile's flaming key, " That yet shall open every door to bolted lib- erty. " Freedom, but never for the heart within this bosom warm, " The anarch brood, that darkly dash against it in the storm ; " Blind sea birds, saddening stupidly the island with their dead, '' And claiming liberty for that whence all its charms were fled. " Freedom, but not by demagogues, bred up in courts of fools ; " Freedom for men to use their powers by right of Nature's rules ; " The laws that hold the world in leash, the laws that set men free, " For, save through knowledge of her laws, there is no liberty. " Freedom for every living man that stands upon the earth, " For all that be he black or white belongs to him by birth. '' Freedom for every man to come and every man to go. " Freedom for every man to reajj whatever he can sow. "Freedom from party prejudice, from threat of craft or guild, " Freedom for every man to vote, for every man to build ; " For every man to own himself, to act his manhood out, " Free to believe or disbeheve and doubly free to doubt. " Freedom from aping forms of cant, that snivels drawls and brags, " From fashions that adorn the dust, but leave the soul in rags ; " From sounding titles strung on names, as coins upon a clown : " Put uj) the eagle at the ])eak but take the ])eacock down. L " Freedom from all alliances between the Church and State. " That whelm the body politic with sacerdotal weight. " Freedom from old paternal power, drivel of dotard lands, " Freedom — for power is only safe in all the people's hands. " Freedom for scholar and for school, for pulpit, press and speech, " For creeds that once have ceased to learn have also ceased to teach. " Freedom from ignorance whose god is superstition's ghost, " From dogmas that have made the cross a martyr's pillory-post. " Freedom for man to think before tradition's musty shelf, " Once for the text, twice for the gloss, and three times for himself. 23 " Freedom in all its shining forms, for science and for art, " Freedom for all the industries that multiply the mart. " Freedom from those restrictive laws whose revenues have ceased, — " Freedom — for the best government is that which governs least. " There is a law in things themselves that regulates their hfe, " That is not quickened or delayed by statute or by strife. "The greater sphere a law doth fill the greater its con- trol ; " A little liberty is not so safe as is the whole. " Where freedom reigns there virtue thrives, there truth and justice dwell ; " Where freedom sink.s there wealth decays, there gone is glory's spell. 24 " 'Tis from the bottom to the top the social fabric dies; " Go to the ground, there, only there, the hope of nations hes. " O many-fountained mother earth ! behold, when morn hath pressed " In iris-winking drops of dew the milk-beads from thy breast ; " Behold the fainting myriads on that full bosom fall, "While lapt in sated luxury a few men own it all. " Curs'd be the law that grants away horizoned leagues of land, " That reads God's title to the globe, grasped by a dead man's hand ; " That leaves a scion of the soil in poverty to go " Without a home above the ground, without a grave below. 25 " Curs'd be that blinding octopus whose phosphores- cent charms " Clutch all the shuddering crafts that come w.thin its spiderous arms ; " That stares out with its deep red eyes across the rolling sea, " And cries, ' Come up, and be ye searched ' and calls that — liberty. " Cursed be those vast complexities that smuggle fraud and pelf ; " Take — take the simple way and go straight to the thing itself. " There's not a handicraft that ])lumes the marts o foreign powers, " Worth half so much to us as theirs as 'tis to us as ours: " There's not a thing that man can give, a thing that man can take, " But leaves him for its interchange more than its want can make. 26 " We want the things that others have, we want their very best ; " Break off the chains between all lands, nor leave the lack confessed. " Take off of things the heavy toll, the tariff and the tax, " Those two great burdens that their dupes hug blindly to their backs ; " Take off of men the angry wrongs that cry against the land, " Take — take your thumb off of their throat and take them by the hand. " Honor the proletariat, but spurn the guilty wretch, " Who corners Nature's gifts for what the pinch of want will fetch. " Cursed be the law, aye doubly cursed, that dun- geons men for debt, " That huddles vice behind its bars and frees it viler yet; 27 "• That heaps a treasury for spoils, that seats without rebuke, " On thrones of corporative power, a coronetted duke; " The law, high crime at law itself, that says, ' thou shalt not kill, ' " Yet licenses two murderers, the brothel and the still ; " Feels in its heart the curse of Cain branded upon its face, " That deep, degenerative taint that rots into the race; " Reels, staggers, falls, arrests itself, and handcuffed shouts, ' Tm free,' — " The dignitary of the ditch — the slave of liberty. " Before the law was written down with parchment or with pen, " Before the law made citizens, the moral law made men. 28 " Law stands for human rights, but when it fails those rights to give, " Then let law die, my brothers, but let human beings live. "Justice! O Liberty, to whom the people's rights belong, "Justice! lest be in thine own light thou stand a brazen wrong : " Well have ye made great Themis blind, where Jus- tice stands appraised, " Lest she have horror of her scales if once those eyes were raised. " Light for the women of the world that mould the mothered age, " Light for the eyes pressed down to death with pen- ny-weighted wage ; " Light for the thrones till kings grow blind, light till the sceptre falls, " Light for the serfs, the hinds, the slaves, light through the dungeon walls ; 29 " Light for the lock-step in the mines, the toilers on the sea, " Light for the poor and the oppressed, light for humanity ; " Light — never till this lancing light lays bare each human woe, " Sheathed be its bloodless sword save in the bowels of the foe ; " Light — and as oft, O Liberty, the world shall lift its eye, " To watch, through coming centuries, that light against the sky; " Let not men see its glory fade upon a ruined land, " On cities sacked by anarchy or swept hy blackened brand ; " On broken columns, where the owl mopes by the mouldering walls, " On stony squalors, o'er whose heaps the moony mid- night falls ; 30 " On streets that mock the traveller's step, on squares whose roar is dumb, " On hulls that leave no trails of smoke, no harbored clink or hum. " O let men rather see that light o'er all this land of thine, " On flashing forms of industry, with rays reflected shine ; " On glowing forge, on flying wheel, on snort of iron steed; " On ships that pant trom port to port with flaming manes of speed ; " On human homes of happiness, of virtue and ot health, " On hills that break with billowy bloom in golden waves of wealth ; " On churches, with no sect below, no sect beyond the sky, " On love, the Maker's only creed, divinest liberty ; 31 " On princely charities that walk through the white wards of pain, " On broad humanities that bond the common peo- ple's reign ; " On states that know no North, no South, whatever fate befall, " One truth, one law, one heart, one flag, one Union for us all. " While Truth, in silence from these lips, speaks as if thunder spoke, " Looks the whole world full in the face, and strikes with lightning stroke, " Ye need no other arsenal, no navies and no forts, " No standing armies and no guns to guard your coun- try's ports. " Here stack your weapons, sheathe your swords ; within the sentried vault, " Behold ! I stand 'mid clashing hosts, to call eternal halt! 32 " Defiant as the stormless truth that guards a nation's trust : " Peace is the virtue of a land, and War a palsy- ing lust. " Ye tyrants scoff, ye war-clouds hurl your bright- veined bolts about, " Lit at the altar of its God that light shall not go out. " Go, drape the spangles of the night, go, veil the rising dawn, " Go, quench the sun, the moon, the stars, go, bid them all be gone ; " Go, memory, forget the dead, — still round this lighted shrine, " On Heaven's sublime Olympus set. Oblivion's gods shall shine. " Great Heaven's Olympus, as of old, spread with fresh gods again, " Gods, not of marble or of gold, gods of immortal men : 33 " What gods ? — the Lords' anointed, clothed with a divine decree? " No! — for at every step they blocked the way to Hberty. " What gods? — the scholars in their stalls, dishonestly devout ? " No — for they scoured the candlestick, but put the candle out. " Whence come thy gods, O Liberty, from cloisters, senates, thrones ? " Answer, ye racks, ye wheels, ye stakes, ye chains, ye dungeoned groans. " Who are these gods ? popes ? judges ? kings ? enshrined with storied bust ? " Answer, ye waters and ye winds that waft the martyrs' dust : " Answer, ye heroes from the flame, ye wild beasts from the pit, " Be they thy gods, O Liberty, by whom that torch was lit. 34 " Come from your faggots and your fires, come from your hunted caves, " Come from your ratchets and your racks, come from your nameless graves ; " Come curs'd, come bless'd ; the martyrs' smile con- quers the monarch's frown, " The stake becomes the sceptre and the gallows-cap the crown." So spake the Goddess and from that grand vision beyond sight. Came martyr-voices crying out of everlasting light : " Smite, toying heaven's bright thunderbolts above thy scathless head, " Smite war, smite wrong, smite tyranny, smite dragon- darkness dead ; " Watch with eternal vigilance, let no man take thy crown ; " Upon thy deep, colossal calm the centuries look down. 35 " Watch — such a charge as thou dost keep, by all thy sons on high, " Brooks not one tremor of the hand, one closing of the eye. " By that immortal robe of thine thy form so warmly wears, " Welded together with our blood and woven from our prayers ; " By every thread, by every fold, by every fila- ment, " By every fibre of thy frame through which our life is sent ; " By all who suffered for thy sake, by all who died for thee, " Hold up that hand for Liberty till all the world is free. " And when at length thy lonely task of Prophecy is done, " Come up, thou daughter of the dawn, and stand within the sun." 36 r Slowly the dragon crouched away as snatched from clutch and jaw, Loomed that shrived wonder that the Seer on lonely island saw. Lo ! on transfiguration's height, translated from the earth, A queen cried out before the throne in throes of royal birth : " Call trumpeters," and lo, they thrilled each strong triumphant pang; " Call seraphims," and lo, with song the vast rotunda rang ; " Call worlds," and lo, with rushing pace through archi- trave and arch, Came rolUng up from cycHng orbs the music of their march ; ■ • While, as the wheeling planet swung through all the heavens of space. As He who was the light of men smiled in his mother's face : 37 Trampling the moon beneath her feet, the pale stars one by one, Behold ! in heaven, a woman stood all clothed on with the sun : Still, with apocalyptic hand uplifted to the throne ; Liberty — signalling — lost in light — no light but Ciod alone ! 38 t-- • r- LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 016 117 437 3 ^^^^^^S^^^^^^«JNC«W^^^^^^^!S ^^^^^